Google is Now Serious about ‘Pirated’ Web Content in its Search Network

When it comes to SEO, we know that it takes more time to get the desired results in Google compared to other search engines as Google is so serious about the quality of website content and links in its search network. We also know that Google roll out Penguin and Panda algorithm updates to monitor websites that are fully compliant to its Webmaster guidelines. Most of you may remember the Google’s Pirate Update which originally rolled out in 2012 aimed at ‘pirated’ content such as the copyrighted movies and songs which are freely available online. For some time Google has been facing the heat from the entertainment industry over not taking enough action against this pirated media content issue.

Due to the intense pressure from the media industry bigwigs and due to the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA), Google has now intensified their efforts to curb the online piracy. With the roll out of Pirate update, copyright removal requests is now at an all time high with some four million requests received in just one month at the time. On October 2014, Google is said to have received over thirty million copyright removal requests.

Media Industry Not Happy with Google’s Anti-Piracy Efforts

Google released Pirate Update with the aim of filtering copyright infringement reports and penalizes those sources that are giving away copyrighted content for free (especially torrent websites). Those websites that are providing pirated media content are penalized with lower search result rankings. Many entertainment entities are reported to be not satisfied with Google’s online anti-piracy efforts as the Google Pirate update works similar to Penguin and Panda algorithm updates.

Over the years, Google has been receiving numerous complaints from production firms and studios with the illegal downloading of movies and other copyrighted media content. In 2012, the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) criticized Google’s Transparency report and said that Google needs to understand the seriousness of websites that direct users to illegal movie and music download. For instance, generic search queries such as “mp3” can show up copyrighted music content as free downloads in Google search results.

How Google Taking Steps to Curb Online Piracy

Due to the negative criticism faced by Google from entertainment entities, the search giant released a report named How Google Fight Piracy in September 2013. The report highlights the steps taken by Google to discourage illegal copyrighted content downloads. This included giving users legal alternatives with the choice to purchase movies and implementing additional anti-piracy solutions. Furthermore, Google will disable ads that encourage users to visit torrent sites and will portray Google Play as the legitimate source for downloading movies and music. Also, the 2013 report emphasized the significance of submitting copyright removal notices, saying that they remove four million pages each week that are sources of illegal media downloads.

After a week when Google released the report, the Motion Picture Association of America said that Google’s algorithms are not strong enough to curb illegal downloads. MPAA researched the results of Google Pirate update yielding links to downloadable copyrighted content. An independent study conducted by MPAA found that more than 80 percent of search referrals to websites relating to pirated movies come directly from Google.

Google Pirate Update Made Considerable Progress

Although RIAA and MPAA believe that Pirate Update has done nothing against online piracy, but in reality it made some considerable progress made in terms of minimizing accessibility to torrent sites via Google search. By the end of 2012, the search engine giant boasted of removing fifty million URLs that linked to websites consisting of illegal downloads.

It was in October 2014, when Google rolled out the latest Pirate Update and many popular torrent sites have reported negative effects in their search result rankings. The infamous Pirate Bay torrent site has lost nearly 48 percent of its online visibility in Google search results according to an early analysis of Search Metrics. Another torrent site Torrentfreaks has reported that they are getting reduced user traffic from Google. But these sites are still alive as people are aware of their existence and they just type in their URL instead of searching in Google.

Google and the entertainment industry are trying their best to ban piracy sites that are looting their revenue and with the evolution of digital copyright protection, Google will become more powerful to weed out pirated content from its search network.